


Warmth

by emma_and_orlando



Series: Joger Week [7]
Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Greece, Angsty John, Aphrodite Ships It, Dreams, M/M, Roger is a statue, Sculptor!John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-24 23:12:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21107543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emma_and_orlando/pseuds/emma_and_orlando
Summary: John sculpted the greatest creation of his career. Things go south when he wishes for it to come alive.





	Warmth

**Author's Note:**

> My last entry for Joger week! But don’t worry, we’ll see each other again soon hihi

When he was a child, Johns mother always praised him for the things he could create with his hands. She encouraged him to sculpt and carve. John can't remember a time his hands weren't covered in drying clay. 

Sculpting has never been a hobby. It's a pathway. A lifestyle. 

Soon, before his 12th birthday, the wise masters of the polis discovered his young talents and he was trained to become a sculptor by the greatest artists of Greece. 

"It's beautiful."

Johns hands glide over the smooth marble of the statue. His hands covered in white dust. 

"He's mine."

He isn't finished, but he is close to. The sheer weight on Johns heart to finalize his work has kept him from leaving. 

He hasn't been out of his workshop for days. Hence why his odd friend has come by to check on him. 

Freddie's lips curl into a catlike grin as he circles around Johns latest project in his clappering sandals. It's tall- human sized and more realistic than anything artificial he has seen before. And Freddie has seen many great Greek states and artifacts. 

"You improve with every project." 

He gapes, careful to keep his hands on his back as to not agitate John. 

They have been friends for many years. In the corner of his eye, he can tell John feels uncomfortable with his work is that close to touching proximity. 

Freddie leans in to take a better look. 

He can nearly hear Johns heart pounding beside him. 

The statues white pupils captivate Freddie's gaze, almost like witchcraft. 

"It's as if it's staring back at me." He carefully states, before averting his eyes. 

The sculptor steps back and wipes his sweaty brow, leaving a patch of white dust on his forehead. "He is my greatest creation yet." John agrees breathlessly. His lips ghost over the statues cold, dry face.

Everything about the statue is absolute perfection. 

His shoulders are broad and strong. His jaw is sharp, but his cheeks soft and plush. His white robe falls over his narrow frame beautifully. Accentuating his define ass and strong legs.

"Who is it based on, a secret lover you won't tell me of?" Freddie bumps his hips against Johns playfully. 

John doesn't blush. Doesn't smile. 

He steadies himself on Freddie's shoulder without looking away from his creation. 

"It is of my own imagination. A beautiful entity who keeps appearing in my warmest dreams."

"There is nothing warm about a statue, John." 

John knows this. His fingertips grace over the smooth length of his statues arm, following the marble veins. 

He longs for heat to radiate off of him. To touch and be touched by his perfected form of humanity. Hair soft, eyes blue and lips plum with red rushing blood.

Never had he longed for such affection before.

Nothing before his creation had plagued his dreams and stole all desire for other matters from John. 

"I wish so."

Freddie seems alarmed by the seriousness of his tone, but doesn't comment on it. Instead he wraps his arm around Johns waist and pulls him flush against his side.

"Darling, if you want something, you must pray."

"The Gods don't listen, Fred." 

Freddie's eyebrow quirks up. His eyes are sly but wise, John feels small in his presence. Especially when Freddie grips his chin and twists it to force him to look at his precious statue.

"Nobody listens if you don't mean what you're saying, John."

Freddie's hand puts more pressure on Johns jaw, making him frown, until he dares to avert his eyes from the sculpture. His fingers twist at his sides.

"Oh Darling, you have grown skinny." Freddie sighs. "When was the last time you had a meal?" 

"Three days ago." 

Freddie tuts at the bland lifelessness in Johns thin voice. He takes away the pike and carving tools, and throws it onto his wooden workbench. 

He tugs John by his arm into the direction of the front door. 

"We are going for food. And then you're going home to have a good nights sleep, before you come back to finish this." 

John grumbles, but he doesn't have the strength to stop Freddie. 

Instead, when they're done eating and Freddie brings him back home, John secretly returns to his workshop and leaves his sculpture a platter of bread and cheeses. 

In case he grows hungry.

~~~

"John?"

John blinks his eyes open when two warm hands land on his bare shoulders.

He is naked. In a bed he doesn't recognize. The body behind him is equally nude. 

He twists around to have a look at whomever is embracing him. Only to be met with the eyes of his purest creation. 

His breath is caught in the back of his throat, Johns eyes widen in surprise. But he can't get himself to move away from the comforting touch. 

Eyes, bluer than the oceans and the skies force John into a trance of warmth and serenity.

"John, we must be together." 

Strong legs climb into Johns lap. The weight of the man is human, it's comforting. John wraps his arms around his waist and buries his nose into his soft neck. Nothing like hard, cold marble John had used to create him. 

Warm hands wrap around his back.

The sculpture breathes into Johns ear longingly.

"Please, John. I am trapped. You must help me out of my stone prison."

If John had the power to move, he would have reassured his lover that he would do anything within his power to unleash him, but for now Johns limbs are as heavy as his eyelids.

Slowly he slumps into the arms of his beloved.

"I am so lonely when you leave, John. Don't leave me." 

Pained sobs drown out into an echoing background, until Johns eyes flutter open and he wakes up in his own cottage bed, at home, alone. Drenched in his own sweat.

~~~

Out of guilt, John spends the next four days sleeping in his workshop on the floor.

By his statues feet.

Most of the time he plasters himself against his statue to keep the cold thing company. But secretly longing for its warmth like it had been in the dream.

He makes many meals, that don't get eaten. 

Because rationally, John knows statues do not eat. All he cares about is that this creation is different. 

This one appears in his dreams, begs for company and release from the imprisonment of the stone he was carved out of. 

John knows this cannot continue for long.

His workshop is too small and humid to live at. The wooden floor creaks under his weight and doesn't allow comfortable sleep. The stone walls provide shelter, but not warmth. He has other statues commissioned to him. He can't spend his days on the floor, not working. 

John longs for his own bed and two arms wrapped around his neck. 

He knows he should take up Freddie's advice and ask for a blessing, but he has no serious faith in the Gods who have abandoned the land of the living a long time ago. 

But John is running out of options.

~~~

He has become unfamiliar to the ways of the temple. 

His mother used to take him up the hill for monthly rituals, to show gratitude to the Gods for their blessings, when he was a child. 

But that had been over a decade ago.

Now, on his hands and knees before the Aphrodite's Altar, John wonders if this was worth getting the sheep blood onto his white robes for. 

Sparing the details, he had dragged his precious statue all the way up the Temple hill- with the help of his poor donkey and wooden carriage. 

Done so in the middle of the night so there would he no one to disturb them. 

The temple had been and still is completely empty. Every breath John takes echoes sharply through the long halls. Decorated in some of his own commissioned sculptures. 

Tall white pillars stand over him. Making John stare at the marble floor out of shame for his unimportance. 

The blood of the sacrificed sheep flows from Aphrodites alter, down the steps of her statue to seep into the fabric of Johns tunic. His beautiful statue is situated behind him. Away from the staining substance. 

He vaguely remembers that his mother used to say prayers.

One of his earliest memories is of how she had prayed and sobbed by his bedside when he was a young child and caught a persistent fever. Her hands clutching his, whispering desperate words into the crown of his head.

That had been a memory engraved in Johns very being.

But now. On his knees, having murdered an unsuspected sheep as a sacrifice for his idiotic idea to beg the Gods to bring his creation to life- 

John doesn't know what to say.

All the words are caught in his throat. The looming feeling that his creation and the other artifacts in the Temple notice his shortcomings, are absolutely nerve wrecking. 

Johns heart thumps loudly. And his eyes water in desperation.

He so desperately wants someone to love. But unlike Freddie, he can't find solitude outside of his craft. 

John never took lovers or prostitutes. He didn't find pleasure in the male or female forms.

Not until he has sculpted his own creation. 

Free of flaws and the restrictions of the human flesh and the lack of perfection in them. 

His numb hands fall to the marble ground and land in the puddle of red. His eyes close and he carefully exhales the air out of his lungs. Lips trembling as he whispers the only thing he can think of.

"Please." 

Every muscle in his body is stiff, and sharp. The blood under his palms is the only warmth in the night.

"Please. Give him life." 

Then he waits.

His eyes are tightly closed and his lips hover over the feet of Aphrodites statue, to show humility for all the years he hasn't prayed. 

As expected, the chilly air doesn't change.

There are no smoke clouds, no Aphrodite appearing on her Alter. There is no music, no magic, no gates of heaven or changes of weather.

John should not be surprised. Should not be mourning the loss of something he never had.

But yet he is.

His cold hands contrast the warm liquid flowing between his long fingers.

With a defeated sigh, John pushes himself up to his feet to make the dreadful journey back to his workshop. 

"John?"

John stumbles backwards into Aphrodites statue and pool of blood in shock.

"I-... Oh my."

Before him, stands the tall, scarcely robed man from his dreams. Eyes bluer than anything he could have ever imagined in his simple bind. Cheeks more pink than the perfect late summer sunset over the hills. 

"John, you did it." 

The statue- no. The man, smiles, his fingertips cautiously reach up to touch Johns upper arm and feel the smooth softness of skin. 

His fingers are soft, and no longer stiff as stone.

"This is impossible." John says. But it barely comes out as a whisper. His legs shake too much to take his weight now.

He slowly lets himself use Aphrodite for support, watching his statue prod and poke at his fluid body. 

Long blond strands of hair cover the sides of his face, the man blows it away to have a better look at John, his creator. His lover.

"I can touch you now." He exclaims, young and childlike. 

In two wobbly steps, bare feet on blood covered marble, he steps forth and reaches out for Johns hand, and intertwines their fingers. "What shall you name me?"

Johns mouth is agape. His eyes drinking in the curves and dips of the body before him. 

He now feels guilty for carving the man with only a sheer silk robe to cover himself. Shivering in the cold now. 

John steadies himself with his hands on the previously statues hips. Leaving red blood marks there. 

"Roger," He decides. "You're Roger now."

Blue eyes twinkle in delight. And when two arms wrap around Johns neck for an embrace- it is warm and more beautiful than any affection he has ever received.

"Okay." Roger grins, before leaning in to brush his lips against Johns slack ones. Leaving behind a hot tingling sensation that spreads to the rest of Johns body. "I'm yours now and forever."

John still isn't too sure this is real. He still expects himself to snap out of the dream and wake up in his own bed once more.

"You are mine as I am yours." He says anyway. He could never deny Roger his love. Whether this is a dream or not. 

"Will you take me home now? Teach me how to walk properly? Have food? Show me your bed?"

John nods, without a word promising with his eyes that he will, but for now he scoops Roger into his arms, earning a delighted squeal and two arms wrapping around his neck.

He carries him down the hundreds of steps of the temple. Whispering sweet nothings in the ear of his beautiful creation.

The intense loving he generates makes him unaware of the Goddesses' warm looming presence, smiling down at them from behind her Alter. Powered by the blood of the sacrifice. 

She sends them many blessings for their lives to come.

~~~

"Be careful."

"I am!" Roger grins. Trying to master his legs into walking towards the bed.

He is wobbling and shaking. John doesn't have the heart to tell him to stop trying to walk on his own.

Roger is human now. Or so John had established by listening to his heartbeat clearly pounding in his chest. Humans needs skills such as balance, and walking. 

Two things Roger doesn't quite know how to do yet. 

"I don't want you to fall." 

Roger stumbles over to the bed, while holding onto furniture to support his weight, to where John is seated on the edge of the cottage. Waiting for him.

He stretches his arms out to wrap around Rogers waist when he comes into radius.

The former statue unceremoniously falls into Johns open arms and topples the both of them backward onto the mattress with happy giggles.

Roger collapses onto Johns body, closing his eyes. 

"I knew you'd catch me."

John snorts, playing with the strands of Rogers long hair, tucking it behind his ear carefully.

"You have a whole lifetime to learn how to walk. No need to rush." He promises, pushing Roger closer to his face by his waist. 

Dreamy blue eyes blink down at John.

Roger is completely splayed over Johns body. His muscles ache, and they're sore.

Almost as sore as Johns, after having to carry the statue up the temple hill, and then Roger down the stairs all over again.

He can't complain though. Not when two honeyed lips (sweet from the first meal Roger has ever eaten) lean in to brush over Johns lips.

Roger sweetly rubs the tip of his nose against Johns. 

"We have a whole lifetime to spend together." 

"Mhm." John agrees with a heavy heart. Despite how real the weight of Roger straddling his lap might feel, he is afraid to snap out of his dream in any moment now. "Roger?"

Roger beams, his hands resting on Johns heart.

"Yes John?" 

"Will you be here when I wake up tomorrow morning?" 

Doe eyes soften into understanding smile. Roger cuddles closer against Johns chest. His eyelashes flutter against Johns warm neck.

Uncoordinated fingers, slowly trail their way down Johns veins, to his wrists and his palms. Until Roger can lace his fingers with Johns sweaty hands.

Their eyes meet halfway. And they're so close in proximity, Roger nearly has to cross them. 

"Tomorrow when you wake up I will be here."

His voice is but a whisper, but his words seem to echo through Johns mind.

John squeezes his fingers, opening his mouth to speak, but only to be interrupted by soft lips brushing against his own again. 

"And the day after, I will be here too." Roger continues. "And the day after. And the day after. And the day after. And the day after. And the day-"

Roger lets out a shrieking giggle when John flips him over and pins him down onto the bed.

Blowing raspberries into his neck to have the blind thrashing and gasping for mercy.

**Author's Note:**

> Omg tell me what you thought!! I hope you liked Joger week. And bless you all for reading, commenting and participating. Super blessed!!


End file.
